[pawadu]

I tought this was a very niche project but there are obviously enough people interested to pay Gina $5400 every month.

I assume even after patreon takes it cut (?) and German taxes she has enough money to live a comfortable life.

[vurpo]

OctoPrint is pretty much the 3D printer web interface. It's very widely used for network-connected 3D printers. Personally, printing with OctoPrint is much nicer than printing the old regular way, specifically for shared printers like e.g. hackerspace printers.

If you have a community printer without OctoPrint, you need to somehow move your G-code file to the shitty single-purpose laptop connected to the 3D printer, open it with the printer controller program, start printing, and hope the laptop keeps working throughout the print. Or you can replace the laptop with a Raspberry Pi and OctoPrint, and now you just need to open the printer page, upload the G-code file, press Print and watch it go.

This is a realistic recount of the 3D printing experience at Turku Hacklab, before and after OctoPrint was installed.